


Broken Mirror

by APHTrashbin (verfens)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: American Revolution, Brotherly Angst, Historical Hetalia, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 15:07:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3654876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verfens/pseuds/APHTrashbin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>England had only ever intended for America to be his reflection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken Mirror

Of course there were times where he missed the other. It would be impossible to lie and claim that he didn't care, since he did. They had been brothers, of a sort before. He had been the figure that had served as friend, brother and confidant, but ultimately all those roles diminished under one, ultimate role-

Master.

In the aftermath of the revolution, the boy who had been forced, yes, forced to grow up, knew many things of that master that he hadn't known before. The one who had sworn to protect him turned out to be cruel and ruthless, feeding off the sadness, fear and anger of the one (who in his eyes, at the least) had betrayed him.

The boy nation who had overstepped his boundaries by asking for freedom had only been supposed to grow within the beautiful cage that  _he_  had constructed for the young nation. That boy who had decided on the crying man in the wheat field was only supposed to grow until that man said that he was big enough, old enough, strong enough.

That child was only ever meant to be a shadow, his reflection, and no more.

However, that child, now made a man by circumstance, had broken that mirror. He had taken the gun that the master had not been able to shoot when the time had come for the curtains to close, and in his inability to shoot, and so the reflection had shattered the beautiful lie, the glass cage that the man had constructed for himself and his selfish desires.

He was no ones reflection.

Not even  _his_.

His name was Alfred F Jones, the only name he had kept was his first- he couldn't abandon the name that so many had come to know him as, but he rid himself of the brand  _Kirkland,_ as well as the pompous, meaningless title that the master had given him.

His name was the United States of America, a new title that he had fashioned for himself. He felt it was a little too much for a mismatched jumble of states that couldn't agree on most things once they had gotten the one thing they had agreed on.

The fact that the colony, the master's toy and possession, the mirror of England, was not meant to be a songbird in a cage.

Treating him as such was leaving a wolf encased inside a dog's kennel, attempting to domesticate a wild animal, like attempting to tame the west of Alfred's expansive lands.

And he had said his name, despite his promise to himself not to, and he was crying, sitting alone in the bedroom he had chosen for himself.

England. Arthur Kirkland. Big Brother.

But in the end, those names didn't matter, not in the cold and unforgiving eyes of the master, acting as the prosecutor, jury, and judge on the case of Alfred's love for him.

Master.

That had been the only name that man had cared for. That unforgiving man had struggled to maintain all those identities in one individual, and so had chosen the one that Alfred had liked least.

Master.

Memories of a kind man with small wrinkles on the sides of his face that had rocked the child to sleep in his arms, had told the child bedtime stories to reassure him and cradled him in the dark nights when storms raged, who had grown surprised at how physically strong he was but did told him that he would hate to be his enemy, had held his hand and rubbed his thumb all over his palm to reassure him, that man faded, and he was replaced by one with stony eyes with dark circles beneath them and a hard line across his face in the place of a smile, envious and dark and prepared to do anything.

Or so Alfred had thought.

A shattered mirror left a shattered man behind, no longer able to content himself with his broken reflection as the mirror broke entirely, leaving behind glass shards, blood, and pain.

Plenty of pain, for now and for decades to come.


End file.
